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MONDAY, June 10, 2013 — If the 2.5 million American men living with prostate cancer were to have an epic summer barbeque, they might want to replace the bacon, hot dogs, and hamburgers with nuts, seeds, and avocados, according to a study from the University of California, San Francisco published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

Researchers found the fat intake of 4,577 men with prostate cancer from 1986 to 2010 showed that men who replaced as little as 10 percent of their daily carbohydrates and animal fats with healthy vegetable fats benefited from a 29 percent lower prostate cancer mortality risk than those that didn't change their diets.

"Consumption of healthy oils and nuts increases plasma antioxidants and reduces insulin and inflammation, which may deter prostate cancer progression," said lead author Erin L. Richman, ScD, a post-doctoral scholar in the UCSF Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, in a press release.

Men who added just one tablespoon a day of oil-based dressing — like olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and Italian dressing — had a 13 percent lower risk of death in addition to the 29 percent lower risk of death from prostate cancer than the group that did not change their diets.

Adding one ounce of nuts per day was linked to an 18 percent lower risk of prostate cancer mortality, and an 11 percent reduced risk of death.

Cardiovascular disease, not prostate cancer, was the primary cause of death in the study. Therefore, overall decrease in mortality rate could be due to the already discovered benefits that these foods have on heart health.

Researchers did find that these foods — many of which are found in the Mediterranean diet — lowered the risk of prostate cancer mortality, but also said that further research is needed.

Paolo Boffetta, MD, associate director for Population Sciences of The Tisch Cancer Institute at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, agreed that the results are encouraging, but more research is needed.

“I would recommend the diet, but I don’t know the effect on prostate cancer,” said Dr. Boffetta. “My concern is that [these results are] based on an observational study and not a randomized study.”

The Mediterranean Diet and Prostate Cancer

"Overall, our findings support counseling men with prostate cancer to follow a heart-healthy diet in which carbohydrate calories are replaced with unsaturated oils and nuts to reduce the risk of all-cause mortality," said Richman.

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